When the Hummingbird Looks You in the Eye

You blink. It is hard to believe this bullet shaped body, green like a parrots, hovering in front you and beating its wings so fast, the sound is as thick as a bee hive. It wanted the lavender astilbe which finally decided to bloom, the specific bloom I was standing next to. It looked at the bloom, then at me. I f I reached out my hand just a little, I could try to touch it, but I stood still, thinking it would surely move on. We had a human to bird face-down, I waiting for it to move, and it for me. I spoke to it all the while, and maybe my voice kept it hovering. When it finally darted away, I stepped through the garden and turned from the stairs to watch. It perched on a tree, and only when the coast was clear, waded in. My metaphors are mixed because the hummingbird is a mix of a bird and bee to me. I will post the video from last year of the boy and his rescue of a hummingbird below.

Meanwhile, I attended two phenomenal literary events. One was the Wequassett Literary Luncheon, presented by the Where the Sidewalk Ends Bookstore on Cape Cod. Every summer,week by week, guests fill the banquet halls to lunch with old friends and hear various writers talk and read from their new books. I accompanied J.Courtney Sullivan, author of The Engagements, a book that is engaging from the first page, and Ann Hood, whose most recent book is The Obituary Writer. It was a lively event, with an audience who listened intently, loving books so much to spend a summer day inside. My table was filled by multi-generational members of a family tree and friends, with makes true the notion books create literal and figurative companions.